Keep a Golf Journal – Swing Thoughts Simplified

Golf lessons, friends’ advice, magazine how-to’s, golf on TV, our own experiments, and practice, practice, practice – these are the many good, bad and sometimes successful ways we get better at golf.

And then it’s crunch time. We stand over a ball with a lot of thoughts and it can be, well … confusing. Shoulder, grip, ball position, that darn right foot, whoops, what was that about the wrist, uh oh, we’ve started our downswing and who said what about the club face, here we go. Hit the ball. Heck.

It helps to write the good things down.

Golfers keep notebooks for many reasons – to set goals, keep stats, list practice ideas, track progress, chronicle an amazing afternoon or one awesome shot.

There are many good and personal ideas for keeping a golf journal. Read some great suggestions here.

But I’m here to say that keeping a golf journal is a way to keep swing thoughts simple.

Five years ago I took a lesson on the bane of my golf existence – the fairway wood. After a half hour, eureka, I’d learned my 3 keys to hitting it. I wrote them down. Every April after a long Michigan winter I reread them in my notebook.

And then it’s crunch time – I’m standing in the fairway over the ball. I mentally check those 3 points, that’s all that’s in my head. And then I hit with confidence, clarity and (some) success.

And when it’s good I send a mental fist bump to the guy who taught me and told me to write it down.